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Lively pictorial map of Fairbanks and North Pole, Alaska, produced at the height of the region’s oil boom. Issued by Fiesta Promotions in 1985, the map presents a bustling cartoon panorama of Interior Alaska, blending commercial promotion with local history. The Chena River runs through the center, flanked by illustrated landmarks including the University of Alaska campus, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and gold dredges from the early 20th-century mining era. Hand-lettered captions recount local milestones, from E.T. Barnette’s founding of Fairbanks in 1901 to the construction of the Alaska Railroad and the pipeline in the 1970s.
The map is dense with commercial iconography. Dozens of local businesses are identified by name and signboard, including Aurora Air Service, Tundra Copters, and Santa Claus House in North Pole. The style is bright and whimsical, with yellow tundra, purple mountains, cartoon mascots, and a compass rose built around an Arctic fox.
One of several regional maps produced by Fiesta Promotions in the mid-1980s, this Fairbanks sheet is among the most ambitious. A vivid document of Alaska’s economic optimism on the eve of the 1986 oil collapse.
